EUROPEAN Central Bank President Wim Duisenberg - the compromise choice when France and Germany failed to agree - is to step down next year, three years before the end of his term

Duisenberg will be 68 on June 9 2003, the day he has decided to leave his position, said ECB spokeswoman Regina Schueller.

"In view of his age, he did not want to serve the full eight year term as the president of the ECB," she said

Duisenberg told officials when he took office in 1998 that he would not likely serve his entire term, so the decision should not come as a surprise to the European Union.

It is not yet known who might take Duisenberg's place, Schueller said.

Duisenberg, a former Dutch finance minister and former head of the Dutch central bank, got the job after European officials deadlocked in 1998. He got the job after France and Germany, the two biggest countries in the 12 member euro zone, couldn't agree on a candidate.

Duisenberg has sometimes been criticized for giving signals that have been misread about the bank's actions. For instance, in wake of the September 11 terror attacks, he said that a quick rate cut would give the impression of "panic" but the bank then carried out a sharp half-point interest rate cut a few days later.

The bank has also been attacked for being too slow to cut interest rates and to spur a slowing European economy.